SOE Currently Has 'No ETA' on Game ServicesMay 2nd, 2011 at 7:17 PM by Calthine

SOE downtime continues as they work to secure information.

As we previously reported, all Sony Online Entertainment services, games, forums and web sites went offline this morning as a result of the recent Playstation Network intrusion. SOE issued an announcement which revealed that personal information had been compromised. Players were, for the most part, relieved that credit card information was safe, but wanted to know when they could play their games. The press release only said, "Our teams are working around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as possible."

We shot off a quick e-mail to John "Smed" Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, asking if the servers would be back up tonight, May 2. He quickly replied with, "They won't be up tonight unfortunately."

SOE is granting customers 30 days of additional time on their subscriptions, in addition to compensating them one day for each day the system is down.

Comments

On a Tuesday afternoon last month, engineers working for Sony Corp. were baffled when several servers running the company's PlayStation Network suddenly turned themselves off and then back on.

Sony CEO Howard Stringer apologized to customers for a massive data breach of the company's online game networks, in the first public comments from Sony's top executive on the outage. Plus: is another hack attack imminent? We discuss with Dan Gallagher and Arik Hesseldahl .Read More Analysts See Billion-Dollar Repair Bill Sony CEO Apologizes for Data Breach Letter from Sony CEO on Data Breach Sony: Hacker Left Taunting Message . At the time, the unexpected rebooting seemed like an odd malfunction. The next day, however, the engineers found the first evidence that an intruder had penetrated Sony's systems, prompting the Japanese company to take what it calls "the almost unprecedented step" of shutting down the popular online gaming network.

Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer issued a public apology this week for what the company later disclosed was a data breach that compromised more than 100 million user accounts on three public networks, and a delay in informing users of the theft. Sony says the loss included users' names, birthdates and passwords. It also hasn't ruled out the loss of credit card numbers associated with the Sony PlayStation network.

Some analysts believe the incident, which has drawn the attention of authorities around the world, will cost the company more than $1 billion for measures that include new security and a $1 million insurance policy for any victims of identity theft. The company hasn't provided its own estimate of the cost. It also hasn't resumed operating the network, but has said it is in final testing and is expected to do so within days.

"Taken as a whole, the number of customers affected, the PR impact and now the legislative inquiries," this ranks "at the top" of data breaches to date, said Cynthia Larose, an attorney specializing in privacy matters with Mintz Levin in Boston.

PlayStation Network, which is accessed by owners of Sony game consoles, uses 130 server systems, 50 software programs and has 77 million user accounts, according to a letter that Kazuo Hirai, president and group chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., sent Wednesday to a U.S. congressional committee. That letter, and a similar account included in a letter Friday to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) provide the most detailed accounts of the incident.

Sony's troubles began in January, after it sued a 21-year-old software wiz named George Hotz for posting software that let gamers reconfigure the company's popular PlayStation 3 console. The suit enraged a loose community of vigilante technologists that calls itself "Anonymous," which in early April made an oblique threat against the company. Sony's PlayStation Network began suffering intermittent outages, which the company later linked to a denial-of-service attack—a common maneuver that attempts to overwhelm a target's servers with a flood of data traffic. A week later, Sony said it settled with Mr. Hotz, but the denial-of-service attacks continued.

Sony said in the letters that its difficulties in discovering the intrusion that occurred later that month may have been exacerbated by its security teams working very hard to defend against the denial-of-service attacks. It acknowledged, however, that it may never know whether people who participated in the denial-of-service attack were conspirators in the data breach.

Though Anonymous has denied being involved in the data breach, senior Sony executives believe a person or people affiliated with the group are responsible for the data theft, according to someone familiar with their thinking.

On April 19, according to the letters, engineers noticed servers rebooting themselves when they weren't scheduled to do so. They began combing through logs generated by the machines to find the problem. The network team concluded that "unplanned and unusual activity was taking place on the network," and took four servers offline, working into the evening investigating the machines. The next day, the company mobilized a larger team to study the four machines, an effort that later led to evidence six more machines were possibly compromised, according to the letters. That afternoon, the network team discovered evidence of an intrusion and that data of some kind had been transferred off the PlayStation Network servers without authorization.

Unable to determine what type of data had been transferred, the team opted to shut the network down. Sony posted a three-sentence notice April 20 on its PlayStation website that said nothing about the data breach. That afternoon, the company retained a security consulting firm and began a two-day process of copying the contents of the servers so they could be analyzed. It later retained a second and ultimately a third outside firm, beefing up manpower as part of the painstaking analysis. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified of the intrusion on April 22, with a meeting set up to provide details five days later.

"We're aware certain functions of the PlayStation Network are down," wrote Patrick Seybold, a Sony spokesman. "We will report back here as soon as we can."

By the evening of April 23, according to the letters, the company and its consultants were able to confirm that intruders had used "very sophisticated and aggressive techniques" to obtain unauthorized access to its servers. The intruders hid their presence from system administrators, obtained privileges to access restricted parts of Sony's systems and deleted log files to hide their activity, Sony says. It took until April 25 to confirm the scope of the data believed to have been taken from its systems, Sony wrote in the letters. The next day, Sony told its customers their personal data had been stolen, urging users to change passwords and check their credit card accounts for fraudulent behavior. It later offered free time on the system and identity theft monitoring services as compensation in the U.S.

The company says it didn't learn until May 1 of another likely theft at Sony Online Entertainment—another network serving games for PC users—involving nearly 25 million user accounts. That second discovery was made only after the Sony unit rechecked its machines—which earlier showed no evidence of the theft—using information developed by security experts working for Sony, according to the letter sent to Mr. Blumenthal.

"I wish we could have gotten the answers we needed sooner, but forensic analysis is a complex, time-consuming process," Mr. Stringer said in his statement Thursday.

Sony has provided few specifics about the attackers' techniques, citing worries that the information could be used to penetrate other similar systems. During a press conference last weekend, however, Sony senior vice president Shinji Hasejima indicated that the intruders exploited a vulnerability in a program called an application server—a flaw not known to Sony—to breach the company's firewall defensive mechanisms.

The attack "came in as a normal transaction, which could not be detected by the firewall and went out as an ordinary transaction," Mr. Hasejima said. "It was a very skillful approach."

Though they deleted most traces of their activity, according to the Sony letter, the attackers did leave a file called Anonymous that included the digital posse's tagline, "We are Legion."

In a press release on May 4, Anonymous reiterated that it had not orchestrated the data theft. "Whoever broke into Sony's servers to steal the credit card info and left a document blaming Anonymous clearly wanted Anonymous to be blamed for the most significant digital theft in history," the group said. "No one who is actually associated with our movement would do something that would prompt a massive law enforcement response."

you guys across the pond seem o like conspirices sony is a money making machine its costing them and the shareholders money to be off line think of how much station cash hasent been bought if we the paying public are not happy when they finally get it up again (and i pay for subs 18 months in advance) then there are ways legally to hit them in there pokets im sure all our combined minds can sort this out and lets not be petty about a couple of level or some dblxp or even items we can make this company take us seriously and hit em where it hurts there bank account imagin for instance what the interest would be on everyone delaying there subs for say three days ? im sure you lot can be more imaganative than me but it would need a lot of us sukers to do it together

Thank you for the many years of fun I've had in EQ!! /slaps self Don't ever take things for granted! I miss EQ! Miss my EQ family on Test Server! Naugrin, Dark, Nylrem, Aalania, King, Amducias, Blue,etc I heart you all!! ZAM Thank you too for all the years of I've come running to you for help and you never failing me! Have a great day errbodyyyy! =))

it is nice sony is more forthcoming with info, i hope the servers get up before the weekend is over, but hope that if they foresee the downtime being longer they will give us a heads up before we plan our weekends.getting info i can use is better than speculating.

Last month, an unknown party managed to break into Sony's servers and acquired millions of customer records including credit card numbers. Insomuch as that this incident occurred in the midst of Anonymous' OpSony, by which participants engaged in several of our standard information war procedures against the corporation and its executives, Sony and other parties have come to blame Anonymous for the heist. Today, in a letter directed to members of Congress involved in an inquiry into the situation, Sony claimed to have discovered a file on its servers, presumably left by the thieves in question, entitled "Anonymous" and containing a fragment of our slogan, "We are Legion." In response, we would like to raise the following points:

1. Anonymous has never been known to have engaged in credit card theft.

2. Many of our corporate and governmental adversaries, on the other hand, have been known to have lied to the public about Anonymous and about their own activities. HBGary, for instance, was caught lying a number of times to the press, to the public, and to Anonymous itself (in this phone call, for instance, ( http://cannotlinkto.com/...) CEO Aaron Barr makes a number of untrue statements regarding the intent of his "research," claiming for instance that he never tried to sell the information to the FBI when e-mails acquired soon showed that he had been set to do just that; executive Karen Burke was also caught lying to Bloomberg about having not seen an incriminating e-mail that she had in fact replied to just a few days before). The U.S. Chamber of Commerce lied about not having seen the criminal proposal created by them for Team Themis; Palantir lied about not having any idea what their employees were up to; Berico publicly denounced a plan that they had actively engaged in creating; etc. There is no corporation in existence will choose the truth when lies are more convenient.

3. To the contrary, Anonymous is an ironically transparent movement that allows reporters in to our operating channels to observe us at work and which has been extraordinarily candid with the press when commenting on our own activities, which is why reporters prefer to talk to us for truthful accounts of the situation rather than go to our degenerate enemies to be lied to.

4. Whoever broke into Sony's servers to steal the credit card info and left a document blaming Anonymous clearly wanted Anonymous to be blamed for the most significant digital theft in history. No one who is actually associated with our movement would do something that would prompt a massive law enforcement response. On the other hand, a group of standard online thieves would have every reason to frame Anonymous in order to put law enforcement off the track. The framing of others for crimes has been a common practice throughout history.

5. It should be remembered that several federal contractors such as HBGary and Palantir have been caught planning a variety of unethical and potentially criminal conspiracies by which to discredit the enemies of their clients. This is not a theory - this is a fact that has been reported at great length by dozens of journalists with major publications. Insomuch as that our enemies have either engaged in or planned to engage in false flag efforts, it should not be surprising that many of the journalists who have covered us, who know who we are and what motivates us - and who have alternatively seen the monstrous behavior of those large and "respectable" firms that are all too happy to throw aside common decency at the behest of such clients as Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - also have their suspicions that some capable party performed this operation as a means by which to do great damage to Anonymous in the public eye. Those who consider such a prospect to be somehow unlikely are advised to read about what was proposed by Team Themis in their efforts to destroy Wikileaks, and should otherwise take a few minutes to learn about COINTELPRO and other admitted practices by the U.S. intelligence community. The fact is that Anonymous has brought a great deal of discomfort to powerful entities such as Booz Allen Hamilton, Palantir, and much of the federal government; the Justice Department in particular is likely unhappy that our efforts revealed that it was they themselves who recommended the now-discredited "law firm" Hunton & Williams to Bank of America in order that the latter might better be able to fight back against Wikileaks. All of this is now public record, and anyone who finds it laughable that those or other entities may have again engaged in tactics that they are known to have engaged in in the past is not qualified to comment on the situation.

Anonymous will continue its work in support of transparency and individual liberty; our adversaries will continue their work in support of secrecy and control. The FBI will continue to investigate us for crimes of civil disobediance while continuing to ignore the crimes planned by major corporations with which they are in league.

We do not forget, even if others fail to remember. We not forgive, even if others forgive our enemies for those things for which we are attacked. We are legion, and will remain so no matter how many of our participants are raided by armed agents of a broken system. We are Anonymous.

Originally posted to barrettbrown on Wed May 04, 2011 at 03:56 PM PDT. Also republished by Anonymous Dkos.

I wonder how many of you were smart enough to change your Password for this site if your using the same log on information as you use for your game play? If you are using the same info then upon log in to this site use the "Forgot Password" link to change it.

See folk's here's the problem in the world today.Guy gets a service for free yet he wants to be compensated like the folk's who pay for such service.I must be lost in this logic.

Not bashing you Sir, but come on

i dont have a steady monthly income that i can afford to buy a monthly sub nor do i feel that i have to pay for the sub if im not going to be playing that month.but as a newer member i did sink money into my toon by buying a mount and some other things.and now i can do nothing with them.it is not my fault that things got messed up so that i cant play so i feel i should get some compensation back that i can actually use not this 30 extra days dribble.

You must have to comment on that because you don't see a charge on your account for the $29.99 for the Premium Service to this website. It's really disturbing to know that everyone thinks that because the information was stolen from SOE that the thieves just want to gain a monetary value. They can also charge things in other peoples name just to destroy credit rating. And I'm sure after reading my post about changing the user name and password it was the next thing you did as well as any other accounts you may have that utilize the same information.

you of course realize that your are commenting out of context? here let me help

Quote:

non subscription players

Chandria03

so whats to happen to us bronze and silver memebers? we might not pay a monthly fee but we do still pay for things in game.what is our comensation going to be?

non subscription players

Mazeron

somehow , I doubt that is on the top of their priority list.

Think you might want to follow along on better one which reply goes to which thread. (And figure out where the ENTER/RETURN button is on your keyboard.)

How ever I will be happy to reply that , I do pay for premium service to Alla. I had a subsciption since EQ came out , let it lapse a few years ago , and recently rejoined again.

As for running around like a chicken with my head cut off after reading your post , sorry no. I already make sure to protect my identity before hand. If some idiot wants to try applying for loans or buying things with the information on my SoE accounts , I hope they enjoy being laughed at. Nor is it the same information I used on any other account. So , with my credit history safe , accounts with other online services safe , and SoE doing what it can to keep my toons safe.... you want me to freak out over what again?

If SOE gives XP x2 you'll get that. But I was informed in my Silver and Bronze days that since I wasn't paying a monthly fee I could not be compensated in any way shape or form for down-time. The terms state that the service can go off-line at any time SOE deems necessary for any reason they feel the need to do so without compensation to the player of any kind. So your S.O.L.

I doubt your bronze days had a leak of this magnitude. The 30 days isn't about liability it's about accountability. Damage control. Prevention of the loss of paying customers.

For every day the service is down subscriptions are extended by one day. They are thus in stasis and not affected. Therefore the payment model is entirely irrelevant.

Yes, players that have paid nothing should get nothing. But players who do should. Our time was inconvenienced just the same. Our data was in just as much risk.

If you think that a sub player is worth more, then I'll gladly accept a monthly average of my spendings. I am currently one month ahead so it would come out to more than $15. It evens up late this month.

I really don't see why people feel the need to say that we're not entitled to fair treatment. We wouldn't be here saying that you don't deserve anything if it were us getting 1500 SC while the live servers got nothing. Mind your own business.

Boy I sure hope they get it fixed soon. I'm starting to loose weight. However, on the plus side I heard about this thing they call the sun. I went outside to look at it and it was cool. So, I did it again and again and again. I discovered after a couple days outside with this thing they call the sun that people no longer want to drive a stake through my heart. They did throw vegetables at me though when I stripped down to my Speedo.

Good morning! We have an update with answers to your four leading questions here:... http://fb.me/J4fby0sE

May 4, 2011

We want to thank you again for your patience as we work to get the SOE services back up and running. We received several questions and comments relating to the criminal attack to our network and would like to address some of the most common questions today. We are also going to continue to post updates to this website with new information as they become available.

We appreciate your continued patience and feedback.

Thank you, Sony Online Entertainment

When will SOE's services be back online? We have been working around the clock to restore operations as quickly as possible, and we expect to have some of our games and services up and running soon. However, we want to be very clear that we will only restore operations when we believe that the network is secure.

How is the SOE intrusion related to the PSN/Qriocity intrusion? Was this a second attack on SOE? While the two systems are distinct and operated separately, given that they are both under the Sony umbrella, there is some degree of overlap in design. The attacks were similar in nature. This is NOT a second attack; new information has been discovered as part of our ongoing investigation into the criminal attack in April.

How is SOE planning to notify customers whose data may have been stolen? We are sending out customer service notification emails to the email addresses we have on file for the accounts that were affected. These emails will be sent by Innovyx, our third party email distributor, and contained either 'soe.innovyx.net' or 'soe.sony.com' in the sender field.

SOE initially thought no data was extracted, what changed? Essentially the perpetrators used sophisticated means not only to access the data, but also to cover their tracks. We committed to continue the investigation and in doing so, uncovered further information that we did not have when we initially believed the data was not stolen.

This is part of the total data collected by the May First Day.[img=195170] and once the shot May NINTH relaunces we are safe. EMS Electro Magnetic Spectromiter Imaging might be the altimate image ever recorded by mankind. Soon we earthlings will think similare. Let me see your gums! I know, this is none sequetur. BTW, get them "basstidert haakkers". Play some chess, watch some NASA channel, clean the computer, and back yard.

____________________________

The Hummingbird: It stands for immortality. Or sometimes the Sun. Hummingbird is seen by some as a messenger of love and joy. It symbolises energy, wonder and swift action. It is associated with the Ghost Spirit native American religion which teaches a dance that is intended to return the natural balance of the world. thanks to wiki answers.

The Hummingbird: It stands for immortality. Or sometimes the Sun. Hummingbird is seen by some as a messenger of love and joy. It symbolises energy, wonder and swift action. It is associated with the Ghost Spirit native American religion which teaches a dance that is intended to return the natural balance of the world. thanks to wiki answers.

EQ2 by far is the BEST MMO out atm even for all of its flaws. It has the most depth (aside from EQ1), the most content, the best mechanics and graphics. Its not perfect - yes there are things we would all like to change but EQ2 PWNS WoW, AoC, LoTR. And with all due respect to Scott Hartsman EQ2 is better than RIFTs too (although RIFTs is a fun little play). You all know it. You will all be back. Just get over it already.

Give SOE the time it needs to re-evaluate its current security position and fix the problem. Stop screaming about refunds and all that other nonsense. Think for half a second. An 8 hour server downage for a patch netted us a double XP day. This is gonna be double XP week or mnth. your gonna be able to grind all your alts, alts, alts and sub alts to max lvl. Maybe even there will be a bonus to the RNG on our loots for a week or two when it gets back.

As for me, when not at work or throwing the football with my kid you will find me in World of Tanks shooting it up. Go outside into the light my compatriots and soak up the vitamin D.

I hate the downtime just as much as everyone else but if they can make it "safer" and all that other junk they say they are gonig to do no big deal imo...we are already getting 30 days free and 1 day per day that its down.might as well say its going to be 30days and a week of free EQ.I for one know my wife faction has gotten better so when EQ comes back up i can kill all that hard earned fation in a massive grind session :OOOO

Gaming is what I do. EQ since 1999. However, never put all your eggs in one basket. I am sorry that EQ is down, and am sure they will get it all fixed up soon. (and a week is not all that bad) In the meantime, I will play the game most like old EQ. Free online gaming. If you like EQ and want something to do, get Guild Wars. Lots of fun, same type of game and toons. Let Sony do what they have to do and stop all the ********** It is not a sin to have more then one game when gaming is what you do...But, If you are really mad, go play Duke Nukem and blow crap up for awhile and get over it.(or maybe I should go get a life)No, never happen.

so according to the post below with the link on them hiring a firm to clean up after the breach, it states a lawsuit has already been filed against SOE... will a bunch of lawsuits cause them to shut down? Could this be the last days of Everquest? :(

For those of us that were close to or at our billing cycle, is there any way to stop our accounts from renewing (besides calling the bank for stop payment).

Even prior to the shut down service was spotty at best (week or 2) and with the new announcement of discountinued service (ie no realistic eta) I would appreciate the courtesy of not getting billed (renewed) during down time.

I appreciate the offer to give some free time when the service returns but I would also appreciate to not get NEW bills for services not offered.

I dont mean that everyone that has an active acct and is NOT at the renewal date should want or ask to do a stop on acct.

I would just appreciate the option to return as a customer if and when services are being provided, credit for services not rendered is not something a lot of us are fans of.

I would venture to guess that if you cancel during downtime, you will not receive the free 30 days. The 30 days is offered to "current subscribers." If you cancel I would think you would fall out of that category.

For those of us that were close to or at our billing cycle, is there any way to stop our accounts from renewing (besides calling the bank for stop payment).

Even prior to the shut down service was spotty at best (week or 2) and with the new announcement of discountinued service (ie no realistic eta) I would appreciate the courtesy of not getting billed (renewed) during down time.

I appreciate the offer to give some free time when the service returns but I would also appreciate to not get NEW bills for services not offered.

I dont mean that everyone that has an active acct and is NOT at the renewal date should want or ask to do a stop on acct.

I would just appreciate the option to return as a customer if and when services are being provided, credit for services not rendered is not something a lot of us are fans of.

two things - the finacial terms of service state that the system may not be available at all times, if you call the bank and dispute the charge SOE might just cancel the account because of it - they have done it before

Thank you for a wonderful game and excellent customer service over the years. Thank you for bringing everything down as soon as you detected the intrusion. Thanks for protecting our sensitive data. Thank you for working hard to get the game back up and running asap. Thank you for not nuking all of those who are blasting you with their negative comments.

Those who complain are most often heard the most, for obvious reasons. I want my game back, too, but I want it safe and secure.

You children need to stop blaming SOE and whining. Blame the a$$holes who hacked SOE in the first place. Common sense.

Thank you for a wonderful game and excellent customer service over the years. Thank you for bringing everything down as soon as you detected the intrusion. Thanks for protecting our sensitive data. Thank you for working hard to get the game back up and running asap. Thank you for not nuking all of those who are blasting you with their negative comments.

Those who complain are most often heard the most, for obvious reasons. I want my game back, too, but I want it safe and secure.

You children need to stop blaming SOE and whining. Blame the a$$holes who hacked SOE in the first place. Common sense.

Again, thanks SOE!

Wrong.

Blame Sony for not even doing the basics to protect their electronic infrastructure.

No Firewall and Unpatched servers.

It might as well have been a 10 year old script kiddie.

It's the same as your bank getting robbed and later discovered they had no security, no still cameras, no video cameras, no door locks and no vault locks.

This is gross corporate negligence. Decision makers were even aware of how serious the issue was and did nothing.

We know all you whaa babies are jonesing to get back into your fantasy world and away from responsibility but alas Sony has to work in the real world where problems take time, no TPs, no time jumps. Beside whats the worst that could happen huh? Get something done that you have been neglecting, go fishing, go help someone. Today i'm tilling garden and getting ready to help my daughter move out of state. Bit*hing, whining, and making threats isn't going to make things go any faster.

Yeah well some of us have put alot of time and money into this game and have no other responsibilities(my one week vacation per year, $#@&$D in the @$$ by soe) ...if sony had not of attacked that kid geohot none of this would have happened ....and who the **** are you to tell people to stop complaining>? You and sony can now kiss my @$$, Im asking for a refund for everything that I have put in in the last 30 days and calling my bank to cancel my last transaction with them.

Im done with sony, I will never give them another dime (online or not), besides who knows when the next time they are going to attack a little kid and get pwned by script kiddies. Hope your reading these boards sony reps, nobody but idiots like this guy feel sorry for your dumb @$$es!

It makes me laugh when a person talks about a corporation like it is actually a person...When Sony was attacked the individuals that enjoy the products and services that Sony put out are the ones that get hurt....It may cost Sony a billion dollars to recover from this attack and that means it is costing the individuals that enjoy thier services a billion dollars.....

Yeah well some of us have put alot of time and money into this game and have no other responsibilities(my one week vacation per year, $#@&$D in the @$$ by soe) ...if sony had not of attacked that kid geohot none of this would have happened ....and who the **** are you to tell people to stop complaining>? You and sony can now kiss my @$$, Im asking for a refund for everything that I have put in in the last 30 days and calling my bank to cancel my last transaction with them.

Im done with sony, I will never give them another dime (online or not), besides who knows when the next time they are going to attack a little kid and get pwned by script kiddies. Hope your reading these boards sony reps, nobody but idiots like this guy feel sorry for your dumb @$$es!

go ahead, call your bank and cancel the transaction, then you won't have to worry about the game any more becasue SOE will cancel your account, might be better for the game. They rarley reinstate an account that has a payment dispute on it.

/rofl the people that always soy Sony will never get another dime of their money, you realize that sony is one of major producers of technology chips that are sold to almost every device manufacturing company in the world purchase, not to mention movies, DVD's CD-R's. Unless you play on digging a hole and covering yourself up in it you will never be able to follow through with your imagninary threat.

I myself don't have a game dispute. But when the servers went down for EQ2 and I found that personal data from some 100 million customers had been stolen I canceled the card I was using as a method of pmt and have the company sending me a new card with a new number to safeguard myself. It's still the same account just a new card. SOE may not be able to get payment but I'm sure they will have no problem reinstating my acct. once the service is back on line. These are extenuating circumstances and I'm sure that millions have canceled the CC's they were using as a method of payment. I don't think that SOE will hold that against anyone. They are already losing millions of $$$. It would be logical to believe that they would accept the fact that you canceled your current method of pmt to them during this issue and would be glad to accept your new form of pmt.(even though there may be a gap in your scheduled pmt date).

Yeah well some of us have put alot of time and money into this game and have no other responsibilities(my one week vacation per year, $#@&$D in the @$$ by soe) ...if sony had not of attacked that kid geohot none of this would have happened ....and who the **** are you to tell people to stop complaining>? You and sony can now kiss my @$$, Im asking for a refund for everything that I have put in in the last 30 days and calling my bank to cancel my last transaction with them.

Im done with sony, I will never give them another dime (online or not), besides who knows when the next time they are going to attack a little kid and get pwned by script kiddies. Hope your reading these boards sony reps, nobody but idiots like this guy feel sorry for your dumb @$$es!

You my friend (sic) have problems. I'm sure there must be some drug out there to bring you back to earth.

As for "Kid Geohut" he broke the law. He stoled intellectual property and facilitated others to do the same. I think he and those responsible for this crime should be given the maximum sentence allowable in the country that has the hardest time. Plus they should be tagged with a web cam that streams their fun times RP "Sally" for their jailmates. Maybe that would make others think before committing this type of crime.

When did the Rodect server get taken out i used to know some people who played on that server and was gonna join that server when i started playing.......but yea what totally sucks is i had only been playing eq 5 days before the servers went down :( i sad

I really hope it's back up by Saturday or i'm going to be seriously upset. I'm a family man and I get very little time to play EQ, but this weekend my daughter is going to grandma's house all weekend and my wife is busy with other projects, so I have ALL day Saturday to play, the first time that this happened for almost a year. And now it's highly possible that i will be denied my one good long gaming day. It's no ones fault (except the hacker that started all this), certainly not SOE's fault, but it just sucks that it had to happen now :P

If you're really bored and can't live without feeling something that's in proximity of EQ here's some suggestions... go to eqclickes to kill some time and find a few nice "goal" items you'd want to get when the servers come back up... Go watch some old eq video's on youtube or the project 1999 raid video's are good for nostalgia... play some oldschool retro RPG's (Final Fantasy , Dragon Warrior, Phantasy Star, etc..)... Or if you're really feeling adventerous, sit down and write Sony a rational compliment/complaint letter and share your support/concerns. You may not get a response, but at least you'll be putting your thoughts down more constructively and it will be more benefitical towards yourself. A forum will just fuel your anger ;)

You can also consider this a great opportunity to get a bunch of house projects/hw out of the way before summer starts, or to spend a little extra time with friends/family or even just yourself.. Books, music, games, movies, friends, family, resturants, theme parks, picnics, malls, school, work- take your pick.. and if anyone gets in your way of that... train his @#$. ;)

Time to study for finals. I hope each of you finds something postive during this unfortunate situation.

If this takes a week+ do you think they will knock back the time left we have to vote to move the progression servers? At this point I would actually rather not as they are widely overcrowded (at least Flippy is) and we could use those wonderful Kunark zones. Not to mention those with XP maxed chars could level up some more and get their epics. My concern would be that Sony would assume its "only fair" that they delay the vote, but I would rather have it kept at its original date. Not that I want the progression sped up, I love old-world zones and what they are doing with this progression server (EVERYONE VOTE NO AFTER LUCLIN GETS ADDED! PoP RUINED EQ!), but the overcrowding is killing my ability to box my 2 chars and have a small camp to myself (not to mention the massive amount of newb-caused trains that have killed me). Anyone have any thoughts or info on this subject? Or just want to excitedly chat about the progression servers?

Sure EQ is down but we can still enjoy life. This gives me time to watch some Anime. If your bummed out this is a great way to pass the time some anime to watch while EQ is down. Naruto Claymore The Tower of Druaga Queen's Blade Samurai Champloo The Sacred Blacksmith *******!! Berserk Record of the Lodoss Wars Rune Soldier The Slayers Those that Hunt Elves Utawarerumono

Just to name a few good sites are Justdubs.com AnimeUltima.tv

These are a few good sword swinging animes to keep you in the EQ spirit.

if we get more info from Adani's post than from sony, i wonder if SOE just wants its online games to just die out.very soon must =3 to 5 days. customers are like teeth ignore them and they will go away.....

I haft to agree with a lot people here. The servers are down…ok. No Ps3 Online Gaming, no EQ time…ok. The most annoying part about the whole thing is the lack of communication on the part of Sony. The updates on what is going on have been few and it is extremely annoying. I could go for having some low-level grunt spit on a piece of paper and toss it out a window every hour or so letting us know that we are still screwed and I would almost be fine with that. Sony’s idea of making this up to us doesn’t make me feel any better either. I can afford to play EQ and various other games (nope, I’m not rich) without them giving us a silly month plus however many days free due to being down still. Give us an in-game item or a double experience weekend, and that would not cost Sony a thing compared to giving us a free month. I could also go for Sony putting up models of three executives bending over on EQ and EQ2 that allow players to beat the living crap out of the guys and it works up all skill points such as 1hs, 2hs, throwing, archery, conjuration, alteration, evocation, and so on.

I played EQ 2 for two seconds before moving back to EQ so I am unsure about the Skill points heh.

Well if the hackers only wanted to hurt Sony they did a poor job because they hurt all who love and play games. I am hoping the FBI can and find you and give you 1 year in jail for each record stolen that's 201 year or more. I am a lover of all games but do love EQ as I am a long time fan.

This will make the price go up in all game play as we all know the people who buy the games and play the games will feel the most as company's that have to pay fines and pay lawsuits have to get the money back someway so they raise the price of all their products. Just you watch it maybe not this year but next year after this all dies down prices will go up:(

Congress may fine them but we the people will be paying that and any other fines that states and other countries may impose on Sony.

So the people is the only one getting hurt by the hackers as we will be paying for all the cost to get Sony back up and running. Game over for some but I will be here and play as long as Sony have games.

I'm sorry if this comes off insensitive, but I can't believe that people are getting so dramatic over a few days worth of downtime. We are all getting a free month, plus any additional days the servers are down! I think a few days is worth a free month..

Also, if the prices of games/subscriptions does go up, it will be worth it to not have our identities and bank accounts in danger again.

As for people quitting because of higher prices? You all know you won't and the fact that everyone is making a big deal about this downtime proves it.

It all depends on what you consider a few days. SOE didn't randomly spit out a 30 day credit to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy. I'm sure they anticipate at least 30 days of downtime before they are fully up and running again. I'm sure they have millions of lines of encoding to review to find out how the breach of there systems happened from start to finish. and then to encode a new system and possibly use a dif algorithm. That isn't accomplished in a few days. Sorry to bust your bubble kiddo.

I'm sorry if this comes off insensitive, but I can't believe that people are getting so dramatic over a few days worth of downtime. We are all getting a free month, plus any additional days the servers are down! I think a few days is worth a free month..

Also, if the prices of games/subscriptions does go up, it will be worth it to not have our identities and bank accounts in danger again.

As for people quitting because of higher prices? You all know you won't and the fact that everyone is making a big deal about this downtime proves it.

And yes, let's praise Sony for being non-communicative as well. I couldn't care less about a few days of downtime. I'm more upset that Sony didn't have enough foresight to even have precautions put in place from the beginning.

Thinking this might be all I neeeded to take a break from Everquest, I was going to try some other games however, I believe I will use this time todo offline things for a change and get to know rl (heard its a dot)!

Well, GL Sony in securing the network so that we can return. I hope you will provide some decent answers though, something in depth about what you plan to do for the 332 people in my country (including me) who have had their bank account number and full personal details stolen.

The PlayStation network breach came from an attack on a data center in San Diego. Taina Rodriguez, a Sony Online Entertainment spokeswoman, declined to say if PlayStation and Sony Online Entertainment shared the same data center.

“Our servers are different from the PSN servers,” she said. “We are operated separately. But since we’re both under the Sony umbrella, there is a degree of architecture that overlaps.”

Rodriguez added that Sony Online Entertainment’s network would be shut down until Friday and possibly longer. The company has contacted the FBI to investigate the attack.

Hey folks, in response to many inquiries, we wanted to reassure you that all of your characters and items are safe and awaiting your return. We continue to work on the issues as fast as we can, but unfortunately the servers will not come up today. Thank you for your continued patience; we expect to be back up very soon.

As for the FB post, I don't have FB so I am going off what people say. I know the characters and items are there, I just hope the SC is there too. Funny how Sony thinks of themselves before the consumer.

You are telling me that they had no clue that since one of their properties was under attack that they wouldn't bother to check the other and take action for more than a week? And then have a day where people use credit cards and pay for SC only to have it unusable the next night?

I tend to think they only care about the money and not the consequences afterwards, because they are Sony and they think just because they are one major gaming company they will survive.

I have a PS3 and I just renewed my EQ2 account with a prepaid card because I had to cancel my debit because of PSN. and I just bought 9000 SC to play around with. But after seeing this unfold, I think after any game time they give to us, I say any because im not convinced yet, I may not renew my subscription.

Given that they are unwiling to give an ETA means that they can't have a full idea of how big the issues are yet and subsuently how to fix them. Personally after the servers are back i'd rather have 30 days without a patch than 30 days free subs. There have been way to many patches of late.

Patches are made to improve the game; Stability, content, and bug fixes are all part of what goes into a patch. If you can't handle 8 hours of downtime every few weeks then maybe you should rethink your priorities. EVERY game has patches. If something needs to be fixed, they are going to fix it. Do you really expect a game to go bugged for 30 days at your request just to please only you? Patches happen. deal with it.

Maybe you should try playing from a non US perspective.....I get home from work and get welcomed with an 8 hr patch. Wake up and smell the roses,...... wonder how the yanks would feel with their prime play time being patched.

Instead of when they are asleep, maybe Sony shoould try this for 10 yrs and see how much ******* goes on.

Two patches per month leaves me with about 1 months of lost subs per year....maybe you should get a clue.

Actually, going by what you yourself just said, 8 hours downtime x2 patches/month = 8 days/ year. Now i don't know about euro servers and whatnot, but our patches go down for normally 2-4 hours, sometimes as low as 1, sometimes a little more. I think some of you whine too much and exaggerate, maybe you should see this like i do. There's nothing we can do about this to get the servers up faster, i'm sure Sony is under extreme pressure and life is **** there, trying to get it up fast as possible. I've taken the free 10 day trial of WoW so i could see wow! what a piece of junk!, and i'll continue to check out other MMO's and keep busy, and once EQ is back up, i'll be back smoking my evercrack as per usual. ;) I'm not gonna walk away until i've given SOE a reasonable chance to make this up to us, and i didn't whine like a little wuss. :D

If one month of lost play time per year ( 1/12 of a year (that comes out to 11/12 of uptime where you can play to your heart's content)) upsets you or the original poster that much then you need to rethink your priorities!

The good news for you is that Sony - before this current downtime - did announce that they are rethinking how they implement patches. oh hooray!... now you can sit in your chairs nonstop and turn into jello like you always wanted.

instead of complaining, why not try some new games perhaps? There are a bevy of FREE MMO's out there to occupy you until Sony can safely bring the servers back up.

"Hey folks, in response to many inquiries, we wanted to reassure you that all of your characters and items are safe and awaiting your return. We continue to work on the issues as fast as we can, but unfortunately the servers will not come up today. Thank you for your continued patience; we expect to be back up very soon."

I think people might be forgetting a simple thing. We are missing interacting with our friends. I can cancel a CC. I sign up for fraud protection (and lets face it we all should anyway).

But at the end of the day what is being missed is Bonechips being a **** fine know-it-all, Waarokku being an impeccable troll, Catsong making sure that gen1 has its RDA of snark and Raeynah being skilled and kind in equal measure. I don't sweat the security breaches all that much. I AM a bit bummed that I can't log in and watch Gnimwit verbally eviserate a noob. Or watch Rigss and Lissome duo HoT stuff that blows my mind. THAT is what some of us are missing. THAT is worth the $15 a month alone. That is what I look forward to.

*sniff* I got a little emotional...someone misses me??? I miss you guys BUNCHES!! I can't even sleep at night for checking to see if its back every six seconds. I've cleaned everything in the whole house - twice. Checked a few new recipes for yummy tradeskills, made my kid an appointment at the dentist (mwahahaha) and today I got a job interview for something to help with school.

What I really want to be doing is dinging my last 1%, dropping my primordial bow off at tribute, getting those 12 aa's for deaths bloom and working on UF/HoT tasks. No school til Monday so pleeeeeeassse sort it out.

Just last week the supreme court ruled that you can no longer do class action lawsuits, that any class action cases must be resolved through arbitration. So any class action lawsuits will make it through the state courts and when appealed to federal court will be shot down. So go ahead and start a class action lawsuit but you'll never win and only the lawyers with benefit from it. Those already started will fail. The supreme court no longer represents the people, it represents the corporations. You won't even see the $0.25 mentioned below.

I think you either made that up or are simplifying a decision they made to the point of gross distortion. I think if you 'sign' an agreement to arbitrate then that may be true but otherwise corps are not immune to class action.

Just last week the supreme court ruled that you can no longer do class action lawsuits, that any class action cases must be resolved through arbitration. So any class action lawsuits will make it through the state courts and when appealed to federal court will be shot down. So go ahead and start a class action lawsuit but you'll never win and only the lawyers with benefit from it. Those already started will fail. The supreme court no longer represents the people, it represents the corporations. You won't even see the $0.25 mentioned below.

I don't even think they represent much more than the Prez and Politicians.

Yes in the US. This don't just affect US players. Im sure I can go to court, if I want to. I live in Denmark and use a Danish CC. I won't go to court tho, but stop thinking its only US this and US this

Recent released information by unconfirmed SOE devs confirm that BEASTLORDS would have been able to prevent the leak of data. Had Smedley not rounded them all up and froze them deep in the Velious Ocean they would have been able to prevent this intrusion due to their overwhelming PWNAGE powers.

Yes, thats right: Beastlords could have saved the server. Notice RIFTs have Beastlords, albiet lackluster in comparision to the potential of EQ2 (and/or EQNext Beastlords) and their servers are just fine.

When the source was asked about EQ1 servers having Beastlords the source was quick to point out that not enough Beastlords were actually logged in at the time to prevent the thievery. Had EQ2 had an appropriate amount of Beastlords logged in the servers would have been able to activate their wonderbeast powers and prevented the attack on the SOE servers.

Why am i being billed if I cant play, I can even go in and change password or cancell my account if I wanted to. And to top it off I just read this in the paper.

The company shut down its online-gaming service Sunday night after a hacker infiltrated the network just weeks after the first breach. Sony said it expected online services to be fully restored by the end of May.

The end of May let see that is 30 days they are going to give us (yea right I will believe when it happens) and 30 days for each day we are not able to play. That is 2 months of not being billed anyone who believes that is will.

I'm thinking the same thing.... Had the boyfriend check our card and yup theres my month sub fee. They may be having some massive issues but they can sure as **** bill us quick for game time we can't even log into play

So this does mean that I'm not being charged rent for all my houses (and I do have more than a few) while EQ is down. I will be awfully annoyed if I get back and it costs me 200K plat to get my houses back and updated. Especially when I had no time to play to earn the plat it normally takes to pay rent!!

All of you just take a second and step back from the situation and stop worrying about a cartoon character. You should be way more concerned about the Class Action Lawsuit that "We The People" are pursuing against SOE for the protection of our personal information. And how SOE is declining to cooperate with congress on the answers to simple questions that the U.S. is asking on behalf of "We The People". ***** the rent on your stupid cartoon house. Worry about real life identity theft you Bone-Head. This is real life not some stupid platinum you get from your cartoon. This whole thing is based around real life money... Duh !!!!!!!!!!!! your future. And not to mention the fact that the U.S. is asking why it took so long for SOE to say something to the public about the "intrusions". That's right........ I said INTRUSIONS (THATS PLURAL NOT SINGULAR) THERE WAS MORE THAN JUST ONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And just another FYI.......... I don't think that congress is going to allow SOE to provide service to U.S. until SOE complies with our demands. We are talking about 200 million clients worldwide....... Read the news articles. U.S. shut down PokerStars.com from U.S. and we can do the same with SOE. So don't expect to have SOE services restored anytime soon. The only thing SOE is telling the public is: They are working hard to restore service as quickly as possible. THAT DON'T MEAN A **** THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So all of you quit fooling yourselves. This is the beginning of a long battle before your on line game play is restored. At least in the U.S. anyhow. To bad if you don't like what I have to say. But it's surely the truth. So get your butts off of this web site and read other news pertaining to this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow seems someone has found a firm of ambulance chasers to process yet another frivolous law suit, my only hope is that it falls flat on its face and the clowns that thought they were going to make money from it are left with a nice fat legal bill.

So please change your "we the people" to "I the greedy", you don't speak for me on this issue as I would have told you to F-Off and get a life.

Funny how you'd be singing a dif tune if you found that you had a new mortgage in a 3rd world country to pay for as a result of all of this..Ha ha ha. And as for the denial of class action suits. That is really insignificant. There are probably a lot of underage kids replying to these posts that really don't care about the possible severity this can lead to when it comes to the consumer. And that's also considering the fact that the pmt to SOE wasn't their credit card. And I see that everyone has something to comment on my posts. Great!!!!!!! but what I see is that no one is posting based on reality of the issue. Instead you wanna comment on Lawsuits or the Poker web site I spoke of or even the rent status of your cartoon houses. Forget about them. Point is that SOE is being uncooperative with congress and refuses to give U.S. answers to very simple questions. and Yep I'll say it again. "We The People" And lastly.. Yes people do win in class action suits. Even if what you say is true about them atm not being honored that's not significant point to my initial post. Stop being narrow minded and picking apart a "Post" but spend a little more time looking at the "Big Picture". Here's where the rubber meets the road: SOE may be a major roll in On line gaming but they are not a necessity in everyones lives. I saw someone post that you should all get outside and enjoy the sunshine.

Funny how you'd be singing a dif tune if you found that you had a new mortgage in a 3rd world country to pay for as a result of all of this..Ha ha ha. And as for the denial of class action suits. That is really insignificant. There are probably a lot of underage kids replying to these posts that really don't care about the possible severity this can lead to when it comes to the consumer. And that's also considering the fact that the pmt to SOE wasn't their credit card. And I see that everyone has something to comment on my posts. Great!!!!!!! but what I see is that no one is posting based on reality of the issue. Instead you wanna comment on Lawsuits or the Poker web site I spoke of or even the rent status of your cartoon houses. Forget about them. Point is that SOE is being uncooperative with congress and refuses to give U.S. answers to very simple questions. and Yep I'll say it again. "We The People" And lastly.. Yes people do win in class action suits. Even if what you say is true about them atm not being honored that's not significant point to my initial post. Stop being narrow minded and picking apart a "Post" but spend a little more time looking at the "Big Picture". Here's where the rubber meets the road: SOE may be a major roll in On line gaming but they are not a necessity in everyones lives. I saw someone post that you should all get outside and enjoy the sunshine.

Yeah yeah yeah you are just too tough for words or at least have dictionary of cliches in front you.

As you can tell from all the supporting posts you have gathered here chiefly none you aren't even entitled to use the word "we" let alone "the people", this is just an example of someone that thinks his PS3 is his life, the world owes him a living and can not accept life without a keyboard attached so it would be my advice that you take your own advice and leave your parents basement for the first time in 30 years, you will see sunshine is all over not just through the skylight.

But just for ***** and giggles I will tell you what I expect from SOE should my ID be stolen, I expect them to assist law enforcement with any information they have on the matter the end.

Through various product purchases, I've been involved in several class action lawsuits over the years (not an active participant mind you, but since I purchased the item in question, I was part of the class.) The lawyers have all made millions of dollars representing me and I got a letter of apology and a coupon for 10% off my next purchase.

The class action lawsuits never help the actual person out. It's just a way for the lawyers to enrich themselves further.

Instead of looking for what money you can get, go out and protect yourself by calling the credit reporting agencies and putting on a fraud alert and calling your credit card company and reporting the cards stolen so they issue you a new number.

Congress didn't shut down the poker sites.. It was that New York DOJ jackwagon who has been a thorn in the side of poker community for years. He can't go after his corrupt friends who are driving up the price of oil (speculators), or receiving multi-million dollar bonuses because TARP saved their banks while they forclose houses left and right, due to slashed Customer support centers who seem to lose doccumentation left and right, and bury any modification process in many months of red tape. (but that's for another forum)

And Class Action?!? WTF are you thinking? They ONLY winners in class action suits are the freaking lawyers.. Why do you think they spend soo much $$ advertising on late night and daytime TV? Say for instance it happens, and Sony is hit with say a $500 million Judgement. That's $5/ per account affected, and the sueing lawyers will more than likely find a way to eat up over $400 Million of that in legal and processing fees. Hope you enjoy cashing your 25 or 50 cent check. =(